Honesty and Integrity: DeMoss Appraisal Srvc

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at DeMoss Appraisal Srvc.

Appraisers will sometimes be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else DeMoss Appraisal Srvc takes very seriously.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior as accepting of an assignment that is contingent on "the reporting of a pre-determined result (e.g., opinion of value)," "a direction in assignment results that favors the cause of the client," "the amount of a value opinion," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from DeMoss Appraisal Srvc we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.